Anyone that has visited a blog or forum will have seen those vaguely annoying one line posts that are generally bad grammer and say nothing except what a great blog it is, how they’ll be back soon and to keep up the good work, right?

Well that is so-called ‘Comment Spam’ and it is the bane of website owners like email spam is to, well, just about everyone else!

What they’re doing is embedding a link to a website either in the profile of the user, the ‘sig’ in the post or even inline in the comment. The vain hope is that ubiquity = high search engine ranking. Anyone who owns a forum will tell you that 90% of their time is spent combing comments for trash like this. Services such as Akismet can catch an awful lot of spam, if supported.

Getting the comment spam int a forum without being recognised is a cat and mouse game that wastes many a webmaster’s time – time better spent improving his SEO :’). One way hey hide the spam is by changing it to avoid detection.

This snippet of text I received (accidentally, I’m sure) from a blog post that Akismet correctly marked as spam is obviously intended to be used as a data file for some randomized blog post comment spamming system. I could write quickly one if I had the time. Perhaps me listing it here will help the people fighting the terrible scourge of self-publicizing spam comments.

{My husband and i|My spouse and i|My wife and i} {ended up being|felt|got|have been|were} {|absolutely|now|quite|really|so|very} {cheerful|comfortable|contented|delighted|ecstatic|excited|fortunate|fulfilled|glad|happy|joyful|joyous|lucky|more than happy|peaceful|relieved|satisfied|thankful|thrilled} {|that|when} {Albert|Chris|Edward|Emmanuel|Ervin|John|Jordan|Louis|Michael|Peter|Raymond} {could|managed to} {carry out|complete|conclude|deal with|do|finish off|finish up|round up} his {analysis|basic research|homework|inquiry|investigation|investigations|preliminary research|reports|research|researching|studies|survey|web research} {because of the|by way of the|from the|from your|out of the|through the|through the entire|through your|using the|via the|while using the|with the} {ideas|precious recommendations} he {acquired|came across|discovered|gained|got|grabbed|had|made|obtained|received|was given} {from your|from your own|from your very own|in your|out of the|out of your|through the|through your|using your|when using the|while using the} {blog|site|web page|web pages|web site|weblog}. {It’s not at all simplistic|It is now and again perplexing} {just to|to just|to simply} {always be|be|choose to be|continually be|find yourself|happen to be|possibly be} {freely giving|giving away|giving for free|giving freely|giving out|handing out|making a gift of|offering|releasing} {concepts|facts|guidance|guidelines|guides|helpful hints|helpful tips|hints|ideas|information|information and facts|instructions|key points|methods|points|procedures|secrets|secrets and techniques|solutions|steps|strategies|tactics|techniques|things|thoughts|tips|tips and hints|tips and tricks|tricks} {|that|that many|which|which often|which usually} {a number of people|many others|many people|men and women|most people|other folks|other people|others|people|people today|some other people|some others|some people|the others|the rest} {could have been|have been|may have been|might have been} {making money from|selling|trying to sell}. {And now we|And we|And we all|And we also|So we|Therefore we|We|We really} {acknowledge|already know|consider|discover|do know|do understand|figure out|fully grasp|fully understand|grasp|keep in mind|know|realize|recognize|remember|see|take into account|understand} {we’ve got|we have|we have got|we need|we now have} {the blog owner to|the website owner to|the writer to|you to} {appreciate|be grateful to|give thanks to|thank} {because of that|for that|for this}. {All of the|All the|Most of the|The|The entire|The main|The most important|The specific|The type of|These|Those} {explanations|illustrations} {you’ve made|you have made|you made}, {the easy|the simple|the straightforward} {blog|site|web site|website} {menu|navigation}, the {friendships|relationships} {you|you can|you will|your site} {aid to|assist to|give support to|help|help to|make it easier to|make it possible to} {create|eng

If you’re too lazy to do it yourself, here’s a simple example:

// Put all the above into a variable called $spam
$spama = preg_split(‘/[{}]/’,$spam,-1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
foreach ($spama as $bit) {
$b = explode(‘|’,$bit);
print $b[rand(0,count($b))].’ ‘;
}

Actually, I found a little time and came up with the Scamdex Blog/Forum Spam Generator.
Click here for a sample

If anyone out there has seen similar spam or scam templates, please please send them to me!!